


Expectations: Broken

by 609Ellie



Category: Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/M, Modern AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:41:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 4,743
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26237320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/609Ellie/pseuds/609Ellie
Relationships: Hapi/Linhardt von Hevring
Kudos: 2
Collections: 2020 Ultra Rarepair Big Bang





	1. Introduction

After what felt like a dozen turns through underground corridors lit by various shades of purple lights with walls waving between exposed stonework and a layer of posters advertising events dating back 20 years, Edelgard knocked on a side door and pointed the two of them to a different one.  
“Our business is in here. Abyss is that way”  
A man with ruffled lavender hair and a silver gown answered the door; and gave Edelgard a warm smile offering them both inside. Linhardt wanted to meander until the door closed to catch a glimpse of the business out of sheer curiosity but Caspar had excitedly pushed through the beaded doorway into the next room and he felt the need to carry on.  
The room was a smokey and dark place. The Abyss that Edelgard had spoken of hard turned to be an underground performance bar. A wooden stage light by a single hastily hung floodlight was the centerpiece of the back wall with various tables, none of which matched indicating how they had likely been attained from different sources.The air was hugged by one large wispy haze that soften the edges on much of the rough corners of the room.  
There can't have been more than a dozen patrons scattered across various tables and as Linhardt sat down alongside Caspar at one tucked into the corner they all began to snap their fingers in unison. “What the heck’s going on?” Caspar asked, utterly incapable of controlling the volume of their voice as they perched like a parrot on a table in the corner.  
“Voice, Caspar. This must be one of those places where they consider applause too disruptive or disrespectful. Try to keep that in mind.”  
Caspar leant back, putting their eye on the man on stage who gave a short thank you before adjusting his glasses and executing. “I never would have thought Edelgard would go to a place like this, someone like her can afford to go to the best places in Fodlan, why here?”  
Linhardt considered - the first decent question Caspar had posed all night thus far “It is a good point, but I suspect she hasn’t come here for leisure, maybe even hasn’t even come here for that.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“Think back to how she’s dressed.”  
“Do you think she’s here on business?”  
“I at least think she thinks she is. The man who opened the door looked like he was dressed for poker not politics. Compare it to her”  
Linhardt planted his elbows on the table and leant in, pointing to the woman currently making her way on to stage. Her blood-red hair flowing from a sloppy brown woolen beret contrasted sharply against the musky yellow light illuminating her. She was dressed in a pitch black shirt and dark green dungarees that cut off roughly around her knees. She took out her chewing gum and placed it behind her ear as she milled around the microphone. “If there was something shady going on I doubt they’d be in a mile of someone dressed like that”  
“I like it! It’s weird” Caspar exclaimed.  
Linhardt smiled to himself “You have to admire her confidence, I’ll give her that. Now shush”.  
She introduced the poem, omitting herself. Her tone was flat, and factual. “This one’s called ‘timeline’”


	2. C Support

I took a stroll on a beach this week, between two rocks I saw a head.  
She smiles up at me from between two boulders, thoughts a rock and a hard place.  
She bit my lip and drank ‘till she floated away. Bit off more than I could chew.  
Nothing else for me to ask I went on my way. Pocketed in the corner she came.

The head’s ashore, shore up like the bristling sands and endless trash.  
Betwixt the ironic binds of surf and foam. Stuck, sucked down into the blue.  
The river of thought opens up into the endless abyss of unknowingness.  
And all that channeled through a single head. Asked to understand it.

Like a pool of ideas, throw one in you’ll never notice and it gets washed away.  
But a single toxic dropping can poison every fish in the sea.  
And nothing that comes out again.  
Is safe to drink, eat, or think.

Caspar began clapping as soon as it finished and switched to snapping once the overwhelming force of an entire room of disapproving eyes penetrated them. The woman on stage seemed to take it well. Linhardt tried to get a read on what exactly her reaction was but found her expression difficult to parse. Definitely not flattered, but not condescending, an inferred positivity from lack of negativity.   
Once the snapping had finished Caspar leant over to Linhardt  
“Was that any good?”  
“I’m not sure that’s a question I can answer for you Caspar… Art is subjective after all.”  
“But I don’t know about any of this wordy stuff. You’re a smart guy. Was it good?”  
“I repeat my point.”  
Caspar groaned as he reapproached the question. “Do you think it was good?”  
Linhardt laughed as he stubbed out his smoke and fished for his wallet through his overly clutered pocket. “Put it this way, I’m going to get a drink. Do you want one?”  
“Red Bull”

Linhardt parked himself at one end of the bar and beckoned for the keeper to approach. She swaggered over with an incredible energy that almost had a physical pushback on Linhardt’s seat. Only topped by the one that came when she  
“Welcome to Abyss, young denizen of the surface. I see you are new to this establishment, as the front of this establishment I obviously would know your name otherwise. What drink shall I bring together to quench your thirst as I, the great barwizardess Constance shall construct you the greatest version of it you have ever tasted.”  
Linhardt’s usual ability to keep a stone front was put to the test as he tried to hide his bewilderment at her energy. “One Red Bull, one JDLemonade.”  
“Well well well that most certainly would not do at all, what a waste that would be of my mixological talents. You simply must reconsider, as there is no possible world where; with all the possibilities presented to you, you would choose something so simple”  
“Well consider your world shaken…” Linhardt responded before being interrupted.  
Presently a hand patted Linhardt on the shoulder as the owner planted themselves on the seat to his left. “Sorry about her, it’s best to just ask for something complicated. Your time’s worth more than the drink’s cost.” It was the woman from the stage earlier. “Coco, Fireball - JD - Apple Juice, salt the rim.  
“Now that is more like it. One moment and your mind will be blown Hapi”, she swanned off like an ice skater prepping to pull a flying sit spin to wow the crowd of two.  
She parked her far shoulder on the bar and leaned over to keep half-an-eye on the waitress, breaking her neutral expression for the first time Linhardt had noticed to give a surprisingly playful smile. “Sorry about her”.  
“No issue. Hapi, right?” Linhardt was to not pay attention to her nod, knowing he picked up her name right anyway, and turned back to join in watching the unusual cocktail be birthed before them. She bounced her fingers across the bottles across the back shelf of the bar before pulling out a vile of something blue. Linhardt muttered to himself “That doesn’t look like anything in your order”  
“Yep.” She responded, still smirking as Constance poured it into the glass with not thought for measurement.  
“That must be breaking some kind of law about serving alcohol. Most bars still cower and serve unorthodox brews as two separate drinks.” he thought back to a particularly insufferable time where he had tried to order a Snakebite and had been given two half-full drinks.  
Hapi pointed to the sign hung above the bar that he had noticed on his way in. ‘All orders are suggestions’. “One of the many rights you sign away in The Abyss”. She’s pretty good so it’s no biggie.  
“What a strange location. To think a place like this can actually function.”  
“Function is a funny word.” Hapi mused as a corkscrew-peeled orange was placed into her drink. “It sounds like fun, yet is usually so boring. Neither of this applies to this place.”  
“Yet function it does”  
“Yeah, I guess so. Lights stay on. And we still get new people in. Like yourself it seems”  
A small clash from Constance interrupted Linhardt’s train of thought. She let out a hearty laugh as she started the drink over again.  
“I suppose you must come here often?”  
“Could say that. Could be not relevant. I know a face I don’t know though and you two, I know I don’t.”  
Linhardt meandered around the words she said, trying to keep where the Knows end and begin. He thought it must take a certain skill to say so many words and still make your intention so unclean. “You certainly have a way with words I’ll give you that.”  
Hapi took it with an unusual stirr of earnest and hoking offence “Blue hair liked it, I can tell you that with a straight tongue. Is he your boyfriend?”  
“Yeah, you could say that. Though only really when it suits them; and they’re; not being such a child”.  
“They seem nice. I appreciate the earnestness. Stands out in a place like this as you can tell.”  
“They’re highly approachable too. Not to imply I want you away, but if you’re only here as a way to speak with them then I can assure you it would be quicker to not go via myself”.  
Hapi smiled. “I made the choice I did”. She pulled her beret from her hair and rested it on the table, before hey-ing for the staff. “Coco. Throw something sweet in it and finish up. I need to be off in a few and have to chat with Yuri before I do”  
“Don’t you worry Hapi, if there is only time for one more ingredient then…”  
Constance didn’t stop talking, the two just elected to stop listening.  
“Like I said, I’m not here long tonight. But I perform same time every day so you should come down again when you can. Always nice to meet someone new”  
Linhardt tried to smile in response before realising that he hadn’t stopped smiling from the moment he got caught in the conversation. “We’ll have to see, if we don't interrupt work or nap time…”  
Hapi, satisfied with the response, judging from her loosened expression; frabbed the drink that had at some point materialised by her side during their conversation. She quickly tapped it on the bartop twice, then in a swift motion the drink was empty and she let out a satisfied breath of air as it pulled away from her lips.  
“See ya ‘round” and she took her leave. Linhardt looked at the empty glass, as if eyteing it intently could give him a hint to whatever level of alcohol content she had just pumped into her body in a single impressive swipe. He caught the attention of Constance who had meandered her way to the other end of the bar once again.  
“Something that she’d order, and a Red Bull.”  
“Perfect choice, good sit. Hapi does have the most exquisite taste as you could probably tell alone from her performance. I’ll make something befitting of such talent, just the one?”  
Linhardt clutched his eyes, he found himself starting to see the amusement of her style. “Two seperate drinks, please…”


	3. B Support

my father’s snores remind me of when I was younger   
in my grandparents house with the T.V so loud  
and the horses racing for the needs of the desperate with my granddad sat in his chair  
a cigarette burning away between his fingertips  
shouting at the screen cigarette ash flicking and blemishing the carpet

I’m on that carpet watching with a golden Labrador polishing my fingers clean  
when the race is over it’s quiet  
and the Labrador sighs and lies down  
my head falls on her softly breathing body  
golden splinters sewing into my hair and creased clothes

my granddad gets another smoke  
10 minutes later he’s asleep snoring like my father   
the cat settles curls onto my lap tiny claws pin-pricking my skin  
the sound of a car passing on the bypass remind me of my father’s snores  
I now know why Sleep comes so easily

“Didn’t expect to see you here again Linny” Hapi said, she had chosen to wear the same outfit as the previous evening. Linhardt had almost convinced himself for a moment he’d been trapped in a timeloop due to how unchanged the bar seemed from the previous night. The same patrons, the same atmosphere, the same musk of artistry.  
“I was invited, wasn’t I?”  
“I guess you were. I guess you were” she mused to herself, trailing off as she sat down.  
“Please, don’t mistake my directness for rudeness.” Linhardt clarified “The offer was made but I felt no need to visit simply because of it. The fact of the matter is to receive an invitation and not follow up on it is something I would gladly do if other ventures took my interest. But in this case, of the options I had, coming to hear your performance again was the choice that appealed the most.”  
“You’re a guy who likes using a lot of words aren’t you”. Hapi laughed. Gesturing an elaborate sequence of shapes and movements to the bar staff. Constance must’ve taken it as some bespoke code for an order because she immediately began working her magic.   
“I wouldn’t say that. More that I know exactly what I want to say, and don’t want anything else to be heard.  
“But what about when what you’re trying to say something beyond words”  
“Say something beyond words...” Linhardt paused for thought, placing his hand on his chin as Hapi cheekily copied along in light mockery, he didn’t notice. “Words are the vessels by which we understand the message we’re told. A message beyond words can by definition not be a message that even exists.”  
“Other way around brainiac. Words aren’t how the world gets into our head, they’re how our head gets out into the world.”   
“I’m not sure I understand your viewpoint”  
Hapi paused for thought as she turned her attention to the bar top. She looked around before stretching over to the place where a couple had previously been throwing back vodka shots and slid a handful of the cheap plastic shot glasses to between where they sat.   
“Okay, you seem like a logic-headed guy. So how about a little experiment.”  
“I’ll gladly play along. Go on”.  
“Fantastic” Hapi said, before pulling one of the small plastic cups onto the countertop between them. Once she was certains he had Linhardt’s attention: she, in one swift and deliberate motion, rested her palm atop the glass and dropped it to the table, crushing it beneath her palm.  
Linhardt starred in a general bafflement of what it achieved to do such a thing. He didn’t even particularly register any words to say in response. He simply turned to look at the split green plastic that now sit on the top before turning to Hapi with a quizzacious look.  
“Now look at this one”.  
Hapi picked another from the stack, and placed it on the table, then she pinched the rim of the glass and started to trot the glass down the tableside. The glass picked up pace and danced down the sticky counterside like a child running through a field of alcoholic flowers. As it went along its merry way to she hummed a little tune which ebbed and flowers with the shotglass’s movements as if being sung by the practically-formed plastic itself. Even skipping past the remains of its artificial friend it kept bouncing by by Hapi’s command.  
Then Hapi dropped her other fist to the countertop out of nowhere and crushed it.  
Linhardt jumped with a start as it happened.  
“A ha! I got you!”  
“That was a neat trick. I’d love to tell you that I didn’t feel any different about the two glasses regardless of the two methods of personification but I can’t lie about my physical reaction can I.”  
“That’s an easy truth. Now try to turn your explanation to why you cared more for the second glass than the first in a way that doesn’t turn into an explanation for why my point is right”.  
Linhardt picked up the remains of one of the shot glasses up and inspected it, as if hoping to glean an answer from the scattered light that shot through the stressed curves of plastic. “I’m not sure you’ve laid the goal posts here in a way where I can score…”  
“Who says there’s a score to be had. I’m just trying to get you to understand what I’m saying. And words are too inefficient for my liking. Especially when the message is beyond simple words”  
Linhardt found himself again lacking a response, but took the pause to appreciate how comfortable he was in the idea of not responding immediately. Hapi clearly felt the same too, as she took the opportunity to stretch her back and settle more comfortably into her bar stool. Linhardt liked that neither felt the need to push it further as it had naturally ended.   
As Hapi’s drink finally arrived and Lin realised he hadn’t ordered all night. He pointed at Hapi’s drink and said “...I’ll have that”. An internal tower of what looked like Iced Tea and Tequila.  
“Make it Yellow though” Hapi added. Constance laughed.


	4. A Support

If we could lose all physicality and untether all ourselves,  
Without the pain of hitting our arms and hips on poorly strungup the shelves,  
A greying map of activities and all of your mistake are gone,  
Leave a dusty trace of everything we’re shadowless as one,  
Now I'm lying on your chest and it makes me feel so much calmer,  
And if a frenzy kicks amidst the susurrus sounds dispels the drama,  
I'll know what to do when I've learned all my lines to this mad show,  
But until I hear the host shout cut I’ll trust our dancing snow,  
Would you take this offer with no advice and find the twice nice light,  
Until thirds and fourths are meaningless until we choose to fight.

“I wrote it back in college. Shuffled together some things before performing it naturally but I wanted to get it out of my system.”  
Linhardt pondered as he circled the rim of his drink with his finger. He let his mind wander as he pondered Hapi’s performance for the night. “It shows”.  
Hapi furrowed her brow “You really know how to flatter don’t you”  
“Perhaps, if it informs the tone a bit more I was rather lost in thought”. It wasn’t a lie as he pondered on why exactly he had once again found himself in Abyss. His day had been bland and unnoticeable enough that he hadn’t taken any of it to memory: from his perfective it felt like he had simply awoken and emerged into the translucent pale atmosphere of Abyss.  
Hapi looked in question but didn’t speak.  
“I was comparing the poem to what you said the other day, when we talked about messages that exist beyond simple words.”  
“Oh yeah…” Hapi asked, tone giving away her mix of confusion and interest in where Linhart’s mind was going.  
“I respect your point and have thought about it in some ways. In some ways I agree. But I don’t think an analytical look at it would be wholly unhelpful to your cause.”  
“I don’t see what you’re getting at here”  
“You want to capture a feeling beyond words using them. So would it not make sense to try and minimise any potential effect the word choice would have. To be esoteric without being distracting. So if your goal is to put the audience in a headspace, it’s best to not trip up your audience with complicated vocabulary, especially if it’s not a keyword that caps off one end of the line.”  
“What do you mean?”  
“That word you used, susurrus, that is a word I have never heard before in my life, and am only left to infer its meaning from the context of the rest of the poem. I had to go back and mentally re-read it after you said it to make sure. And by the time I had you were already a line further long. So I missed something, the thread was broken, a rock placed in the stream-of-conciousness and suddenly swimming up it became a chore”.  
While the metaphor was mangled. Linhardt took pride in his construction of it enough to feel a wave of relief as the last word exited his mouth. He felt a little wave of what Hapi had described about the task of summarising a complex thought into simple words. “Have you ever performed the same poem two nights in a row?” he asked  
“I don’t think I ever have, no. In fact I don’t think I’ve ever done the same poem twice at all. It’s not really what I’m here for. I do it because I enjoy performing, and I don’t particularly enjoy doing the same thing twice. If I perform something and as I do I feel like it doesn’t work I’d rather try a different approach”  
“Well I would recommend it. While I respect the fact that you place your own wants of the performance so far above all else, in fact I find a rather enviable level of self-certainty. Treading briefly through something unfavourable can often be a very productive experience in the long-run.”  
Hapi leant back and considered it, watching Linhardt as he remained stonefaced in his earnestness at the advice he had given. She’d thought upon first meeting him that his face was simply one that didn’t show his emotion but in the interactions they’d had she could already pick up on the subtle ways he did. Just because the range was narrow, didn’t mean it wasn’t deep. And doesn’t mean she couldn’t spot the twinkle in his eye or the subtle digs in the cheek that moved almost imperceptibly as his tone changed.   
“Look at it this way, you said you do not want to try the same thing twice, no?” Hapi nodded “Well then, if you only try performing the same poem twice once, then you haven’t done that twice have you?”  
“Well Linny, it’s hard to argue with that”  
“Who’s arguing?, I’m merely suggesting you think of it. Like I said I admire your conviction, just consider if this is apart of it or not, and go with what you think is best. If you do let me know, I’d be curious to see”.


	5. A+ Support

If we could lose all physicality and untether all ourselves,  
Without the pain of hitting our arms and hips on poorly built the shelves,  
A greying map of past, and all of your mistake are gone,  
Leave a dusty trace of everything we are - shadowless as one,  
Now I'm lying on your chest and it makes me feel so much colder,  
And if a frenzy kicks amidst the swirling sounds dispels the heat,  
I'll know what to do when I've learned all my lines to this mad show,  
But until I hear the host shout cut I’ll trust our dancing snow,  
Would you take this offer with no advice and find the twice nice light,  
Until thirds and fourths are meaningless until we choose to fight.

Hapi ordered herself another drink, wordlessly again though electing to order instead of knocking on the bartop to attract the staff’s attention. Linhardt had accepted at this point that the relationship between the workers and the regulars of Abyss was not an ecosystem of mutually understood codes but rather one long game of seeing how much they can make up as they go along. Regardless they were indistinguishable, which to someone who still considered himself a relative outsider meant the intention didn’t matter.  
“What did you think”  
Linhardt had found himself unsure of what he thought. The change had been made, and he had noticed the difference, especially how it flowed together much better than before. His feeling would form fully in his head but when he tried sending them to his mouth they’d get lost along the way.  
“I think it was an improvement. I’m grateful you took my advice” He was struggling in a way he wasn’t quite sure how to explain.  
Hapi had learned to read Linhardt more and more with each encounter, and could tell he was running in circles from the subtle way he waved his head in thought as if ticking like a metronome.  
“I apologies Hapi. I’m not quite sure how to proceed with this conversation. For what feels like the first time in a great many years, the words to express myself are beyond me.”  
“Linhardt, don’t take this the wrong way. I know exactly where this is going”.   
Linhardt turned around to meet Hapi’s point and was surprised to have his lips met with her own. Linhardt froze the moment he was suddenly having his senses overloaded from a single source. He took a moment to feel the warm atmosphere of the bar drain away as he felt Hapi’s body heat radiate against his own. The uncomfortable position the barstool held him in was suddenly replaced with the softness of her skin pressing gently against his own. And the lingering taste of the night’s first abstract alcoholic concoction was suddenly thrown away to the gentle tango of their lips pressed together.   
Hapi was surprised when she pulled away and opened her eyes to see Linhardt’s still open. Not in shock or surprise, or even in a confused haze of-the-moment. Linhardt facial expression was more so one of curiosity, like the kiss was more of a scientific eureka than a moment of unexpected romance.   
“Interesting... I hadn’t considered that possibility”  
Hapi was flabbergasted at his statement. “You… hadn’t considered... that..?”  
“I’m afraid not. But it does make a certain amount of sense. In fact I’m slightly surprised I hadn’t considered it myself. I was struggling to find the words not only due to the poetry you presented, but by simple virtue of it coming from you I found myself more stuck”  
“Oh for Abyss’s sake” Hapi sighed and she slammed her head into the table, facing away from Linhardt in her embarrassment over how Linhardt’s pragmatism had somehow made it this far, beyond everything.  
“In the time we’ve come to know each other, I have grown a great admiration of you, Hapi. I could have told you that before you took the risk to kiss me. But I am well aware sometimes I fail to read the whole situation and in this time I had failed to register in fact how much I had grown to like you.”   
Hapi let out a long sigh to get the metaphorical demons out of her system and she leant back up. “You’re an unusual guy Lin. But. I guess I like that about you.”  
The silence hung in the air palpably after that. They sat in the comfort of each other’s company.   
“So… do you want to kiss again, or not?”  
Linhardt places his hand against his chin, trapped in earnest thought once again as Hapi couldn’t stifle a giggle at the realisation. She had her moment of frustration at his ways, much the same way Linhardt had had his moment of frustration at himself over his own shortsightedness, but she realised the intersection of his pragmatism and his earnestness would come to head in just a few more seconds...  
“Yes. I think that would be nice”


	6. Endcard

Leave your audience  
Thoughts: impressed, Hearts: in earnest.  
expectations: broken.

The room remained mostly still as Hapi took her bow, for the first time she wore a comfortable aura as she finished. Fully proud of herself as the audience stayed in silence, tension in the air as they expected her to continue. She laughed in her head as she took herself off the stage. A single snap of the fingers from the back of the crowd came from Linhardt as he found himself alone in a part of the piece.


End file.
